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DISCOURSE 

ON THE LIFE AND CHARACTER OF THE 
REV. JOSEPH TUCKERMAN, D. D. 

DELIVERED AT THE 



WARREN STREET CHAPEL, ON SUNDAY 
EVENING, JAN. 31, 1841. 



■ 

BY WILLIAM E. CHANNING. 



Published for the "Warren Street Chape], 



BOSTON : 
WILLIAM CROSBY #• CO. 

1841, 



^ 



*^.« 



I. R. BUTTS, PRINTER, 



DISCOURSE. 



Five years ago this Chapel was dedicated to 
the moral and religious instruction of the poor of 
this city. This event makes no noise in history, 
and may seem to some to merit no particular no- 
tice. It is remembered, however, by not a few in- 
dividuals and families, as the beginning of many 
good influences. Still more, it is not an event 
which stands alone. This chapel is the sign of 
an important movement, which is not soon to pass 
away. It sprung from the labors of that faithful 
servant of God, to whom we owe the establish- 
ment of the Ministry at Large in this place. It 
is intimately connected with, and reveals to us> 
his life and labors ; and accordingly the anniver- 
sary of its dedication to religious services, is a fit 
occasion for offering a tribute to his memory. I 
have wished, ever since his removal, to express 



4 DISCOURSE. 

my reverence for his character, and my sense of 
the greatness of his work. To these topics I in- 
vite your attention. But before entering on them, 
I propose to consider a more general subject, 
which was often on the lips of our departed friend, 
to which he constantly recurred in his writings, and 
on the comprehension of which the permanence of 
the Ministry at Large chiefly depends. This sub- 
ject is, the obligation of a city to care for and watch 
over the moral health of its members, and especially 
to watch over the moral safety and elevation of its 
poorer and more exposed classes. The life of 
our departed friend embodied and expressed this 
truth with singular power, and the consideration 
of it is a natural and fit introduction to a memo- 
rial of his virtues and labors, as well as particu- 
larly adapted to the occasion which has brought 
us together. 

Why is it, my friends, that we are brought so 
near to one another in cities ? It is, that nearness 
should awaken sympathy 5 that multiplying wants 
should knit us more closely together ; that we 
should understand one another's perils and suf- 
ferings ; that we should act perpetually on one 
another for good. Why were we not brought 
into being in solitudes, endowed each with the 



DISCOURSE. O 

power of satisfying to the full his particular wants ? 
God has room enough for a universe of separate, 
lonely, silent beings, of selfish, unshared enjoy- 
ment. But through the whole range of nature, 
we find nothing insulated, nothing standing alone. 
Union is the law of his creation. Even matter 
is an emblem of universal sympathy, for all its par- 
ticles tend towards one another, and its great 
masses are bound into one system by mutual at- 
traction. How much more was the human race 
made for sympathy and mutual aid. How plain 
is the social destination of man, bora as he is into 
the arms of love, sustained from the beginning by 
human kindness, endowed with speech, and plunged 
among fellow beings, to whose feelings he cannot 
but respond, into whose hearts he yearns to pour 
his own, and whose rights, feelings and interests, 
are commended to his regard by a law of love and 
justice, written within him by a divine hand. Can 
we ask why such beings are gathered into cities ? 
Is it not, that they should propose a common 
weal ? Is it not that they should desire and seek 
each other's highest good ? 

What is the happiest community ? What the 
city which should be chosen above all others as our 
home ? It is that, the members of which form one 
body, in which no class seeks a monopoly of hon- 



6 DISCOURSE. 

or or good, in which no class is a prey to others, 
in which there is a general desire, that every human 
being may have opportunity to develope his pow- 
ers. What is the happiest community ? It is not 
that, in which the goods of life are accumulated in 
a few hands, in which property sinks a great gulf 
between different ranks, in which one portion of 
society swells with pride, and the other is broken 
in spirit ; but a community, in which labor is re- 
spected, and the means of comfort and improve- 
ment are liberally diffused. It is not a community, 
in which intelligence is developed in a few, whilst 
the many are given up to ignorance, superstition, 
and a gross animal existence; but one, in which 
the mind is so reverenced in every condition, that 
the opportunities of its culture are afforded to all. 
It is a community, in which religion is not used to 
break the many into subjection, but is dispensed, 
even to the poorest, to rescue them from the de- 
grading influence of poverty, to give them gene- 
rous sentiments and hopes, to exalt them from ani- 
mals into men, into Christians, into children of God. 
This is a happy community, where human nature 
is held in honor, where, to rescue it from ignorance 
and crime, to give it an impulse towards know- 
ledge, virtue and happiness, is thought the chief 
end of the social union. 



DISCOURSE. 7 

It is the unhappiness of most large cities, that, 
instead of this union and sympathy, they consist 
of different ranks, so widely separated as, indeed, 
to form different communities. In most large 
cities there may be said to be two nations, under- 
standing as little of one another, having as little 
intercourse, as if they lived in different lands. In 
such a city as London, the distance of a few streets 
only will carry you from one stage of civilization 
to another, from the excess of refinement to bar- 
barism, from the abodes of cultivated intellect to 
brutal ignorance, from what is called fashion to the 
grossest manners ; and these distinct communities 
know comparatively nothing of each other. There 
are travellers from that great city who come to visit 
our Indians, but who leave at home a community 
as essentially barbarous as that which they seek, 
who, perhaps, have spent all their lives in the 
midst of it, giving it no thought. To these trav- 
ellers, a hovel, in one of the suburbs which they 
have left, would be as strange a place as the wig- 
wam of our own forests. They know as little 
what thousands of their own city suffer, to what 
extremities thousands are reduced, by what arts 
thousands live, as they know of the modes of life 
in savage tribes. How much more useful lessons 
would they learn, and how much holier feelings 



8 DISCOURSE. 

would be awakened in them, were they to pene- 
trate the dens of want, and wo, and crime, a few 
steps from their own door, than they gain from ex- 
ploring this new world ! And what I say of Lon- 
don is true also of this city in a measure. Not a 
few grow up and die here, without understanding 
how multitudes live and die around them, without 
having descended into the damp cellar, where 
childhood and old age spend day and night, win- 
ter and summer, or without scaling the upper 
room, which contains within its narrow and naked 
walls not one, but two and even three families. 
They see the poor in the street, but never follow 
them in thought to their cheerless homes, or ask 
how the long day is filled up. They travel, in 
books at least, to distant regions, among nations of 
different languages and complexions, but are stran- 
gers to the condition and character of masses who 
speak their native tongue, live under their eye, and 
are joined with them for weal or woe in the same 
social state. This estrangement of men from men, 
of class from class, is one of the saddest features of 
a great city. It shows that the true bond of com- 
munities is as yet imperfectly known. 

The happy community is that, in which its mem- 
bers care for one another, and in which there is 
especially an interest in the intellectual and moral 



DISCOURSE. 9 

improvement of all. That sympathy which pro- 
vides for the outward wants of all, whic>^ sends 
supplies to the poor man's house, is a blessed fruit 
of Christianity ; and it is happy when this 'prevails 
in and binds together a city. But we have now 
learnt, that the poor are not to be essentially, per- 
manently aided by the mere relief of bodily wants. 
We are learning, that the greatest efforts of a com- 
munity should be directed not to relieve indigence, 
but to dry up its sources, to supply moral v> ints, to 
spread purer principles and habits, to remove the 
temptations to intemperance and sloth, V> snatch 
the child from moral perdition, and to n^ake the 
man equal to his own support, by awakening in 
him the spirit and the powers of a man. The 
glory and happiness of a community consists in 
vigorous efforts, springing from love, sustained by 
faith, for the diffusion through all classy of intel- 
ligence, of self-respect, of self-control, of thirst for 
knowledge, and for moral and religious growth. 
Here is the first end, the supreme interest which a 
community should propose, and in achieving it, all 
other interests are accomplished. 

It is a plain truth, and yet how little understood, 
that the greatest thing in a city is Man himself. 
He is its end. We admire its palaces ; but the me- 
chanic who builds them is greater than palaces. 



10 DISCOURSE. 

Human ipature in its lowest form, in the most abject 
child of/ want, is of more worth than all outward 
improvements. You talk of the prosperity of your 
city, y know but one true prosperity. Does the 
human soul grow and prosper here ? Do not point 
me to ypur thronged streets. I ask, who throng 
them ? | Is it a low-minded, self-seeking, gold- 
worshiping, man-despising crowd, which I see 
rushing through them ? Do I meet in them, un- 
der the-, female form, the gaily-decked prostitute, 
or the idle, wasteful, aimless, profitless woman of 
fashion } Do I meet the young man, showing off 
his pret?y person as the perfection of nature's 
works, wasting his golden hours in dissipation and 
sloth, and bearing in his countenance and gaze the 
marks of a profligate ? Do I meet a grasping mul- 
titude, seeking to thrive by concealments and frauds? 
An anxir.ys multitude, driven by fear of want to 
doubtful means of gain ? An unfeeling multitude, 
caring nothing for others, if they may themselves 
prosper or enjoy ? In the neighborhood of your 
comfortable or splendid dwellings are there abodes 
of squalid misery, of reckless crime, of bestial in- 
temperance, of half famished childhood, of profane- 
ness, of dissoluteness, of temptation for thought- 
less youth ? And are these multiplying with your 
prosperity, and outstripping and neutralizing the 



DISCOURSE. 11 

influences of truth and virtue ? Then your pros- 
perity is a vain show. Its true use is to make 
a better people. The glory and happiness of a 
city consist not in the number, but the character 
of its population. Of all the fine arts in a city, 
the grandest is the art of forming noble specimens 
of humanity. The costliest productions of our 
manufactures are cheap, compared with a wise 
and good human being. A city, which should prac- 
tically adopt the principle, that man is worth more 
than wealth or show, would gain an impulse that 
would place it at the head of cities. A city, in 
which men should be trained worthy of the name, 
would become the metropolis of the earth. 

God has prospered us, and, as we believe, is again 
to prosper us in our business ; and let us show our 
gratitude by inquiring for what end prosperity is giv- 
en, and how it may best accomplish the end of the 
giver. Let us use it to give a higher character to our 
city, to send refining, purifying influences through 
every department of life. Let us especially use it, to 
multiply good influences in those classes which are 
most exposed to temptation. Let us use it to pre- 
vent the propagation of crime from parent to child. 
Let us use it in behalf of those, in whom our na- 
ture is most depressed, and who, if neglected, will 
probably bring on themselves the arm of penal 



12 DISCOURSE. 

law. Nothing is so just a cause of self-respect 
in a city, as the healthy, moral condition of those 
who are most exposed to crime. This is the best 
proof, that the prosperous classes are wise, intelli- 
gent and worthy of their prosperity. Crime is to 
the state what dangerous disease is to the human 
frame, and to expel it should be to the communi- 
ty an object of the deepest concern. This topic 
is so important, that I cannot leave it without urg- 
ing it on your serious thoughts. 

Society has hitherto employed its energy chiefly 
to punish crime. It is infinitely more important to 
prevent it ; and this I say not for the sake of those 
alone on whom the criminal preys. I do not think 
only or chiefly of those who suffer from crime. I 
plead also, and plead more, for those who perpe- 
trate it. In moments of clear, calm thought, I 
feel more for the wrong doer than for him who is 
wronged. In a case of theft, incomparably the 
most wretched man is he who steals, not he who is 
robbed. The innocent are not undone by acts of 
violence or fraud from which they suffer. They 
are innocent, though injured. They do not bear 
the brand of infamous crime ; and no language can 
express the import of this distinction. When I 
visit the cell of a convict, and see a human being 
who has sunk beneath his race, who is cast out by 



DISCOURSE. 13 

his race, whose name cannot be pronounced in his 
home or only pronounced to start a tear, who has 
forfeited the confidence of every friend, who has 
lost that spring of virtue and effort, the hope of 
esteem, whose conscience is burdened with irrepar- 
able guilt, who has hardened himself against the 
appeals of religion and love, here, here I see a Ruin. 
The man whom he has robbed or murdered, how 
much happier than he ! What I want is, not 
merely that society should protect itself against 
crime, but that it shall do all that it can to preserve 
its exposed members from crime, and so do for the 
sake of these as truly as for its own. It should 
not suffer human nature to fall so deeply, so terri- 
bly, if the ruin can be avoided. Society ought 
not to breed Monsters in its bosom. If it will not 
use its prosperity to save the ignorant and poor from 
the blackest vice, if it will even quicken vice by 
its selfishness and luxury, its worship of wealth, its 
scorn of human nature, then it must suffer, and de- 
serves to suffer, from crime. 

1 would that, as a city, we might understand and 
feel, how far we are chargeable with much of the 
crime and misery around us, of which we complain. 
Is it not an acknowledged moral truth, that we are 
answerable for all evil which we are able, but have 
failed, to prevent ? Were Providence to put us 



14 DISCOURSE. 

in possession of a remedy for a man dying at our 
feet, and should we withhold it, would not the guilt 
of his death lie at our door ? Are we not accessory 
to the destruction of the blind man, who, in our sight 
approaches a precipice, and whom we do not w r ara 
of his danger ? On the same ground much of the 
guilt and misery around us, must be imputed to 
ourselves. Why is it, that so many children in a 
large city grow up in ignorance and vice ? Be- 
cause that city abandons them to ruinous influ- 
ences, from which it might and ought to rescue 
them. Why is beggary so often transmitted from 
parent to child ? Because the public, and because 
individuals do little or nothing to break the fatal 
inheritance. Whence come many of the darkest 
crimes ? From despondency, recklessness, and a 
pressure of suffering, which sympathy would have 
lightened. Human sympathy, Christian sym- 
pathy, were it to penetrate the dwellings of the 
ignorant, poor and suffering, were its voice lift- 
ed up to encourage, guide and console, and its 
arm stretched out to sustain, what a new w r orld 
would it call into being ! What a new city should 
we live in ! How many victims of stern justice, 
would become the living, joyful witnesses of the 
regenerating power of a wise Christian love. 

In these remarks 1 have expressed sympathy 



DISCOURSE. 15 

with the criminal ; but do not imagine, that 1 have 
any desire to screen him from that wise punishment, 
which aims at once to reform offenders and protect 
society. The mercy, which would turn aside the 
righteous penalties of law, is, however uncon- 
sciously, a form of cruelty. As friends of the 
tempted part of the community, we should make 
the escape of the criminal next to hopeless. But 
let not society stop here. Let it use every means 
in its power of rescuing its members from the de- 
gradation and misery of crime and public punish- 
ishment. Let it especially protect the exposed 
child. Here is a paramount duty, which no com- 
munity has yet fulfilled. If the child be left to 
grow up in utter ignorance of duty, of its Maker, 
of its relation to society, to grow up in an atmos- 
phere of profaneness and intemperance, and in the 
practice of falsehood and fraud, let not the com- 
munity complain of his crime. It has quietly 
looked on and seen him, year after year, arming 
himself against its order and peace ; and who is 
most to blame, w T hen at last he deals the guilty 
blow ? A moral care over the tempted and igno- 
rant portion of the state is a primary duty of so- 
ciety. 

I know that objection will be made to this rep- 
resentation of duty. It will be said, by not a few, 



16 DISCOURSE. 

" We have not time to take care of others. We 
do our part in taking care of ourselves and our 
families. Let every man watch over his own 
household, and society will be at peace." I re- 
ply first, this defence is not founded in truth. Very 
few can honestly say, that they have no time or 
strength to spend beyond their families. How 
much time, thought, wealth, strength, is wasted, 
absolutely wasted, by a large proportion of every 
people. Were the will equal to the power, were 
there a fraternal concern for the falling and fallen 
members of the community, what an amount of 
energy would be spent in redeeming society from 
its terrible evils, without the slightest diminution 
of exertion at home. 

But, still more, we defeat ourselves, when we 
neglect the moral state of the city where we live, 
under pretence of caring for our families. How 
little may it profit you, my friends, that you la- 
bor at home, if in the next street, amidst haunts 
of vice, the incendiary, the thief, the ruffian, is 
learning his lesson, or preparing his instruments of 
destruction ? How little may it profit you, that 
you are striving to educate your children, if around 
you, the children of others are neglected, are con- 
taminated with evil principles or impure passions ? 
Where is it that our sons often receive the most 



DISCOURSE. 17 

powerful impulses ? In the street, at school, from 
associates. Their ruin may be sealed by a young 
female brought up in the haunts of vice. Their 
first oaths may be echoes of profaneness which they 
hear from the sons of the abandoned. What is 
the great obstruction to our efforts for educating 
our children ? It is the corruption around us. 
That corruption steals into our homes, and neutral- 
izes the influence of home. We hope to keep our 
little circle pure, amidst general impurity. This 
is like striving to keep our particular houses heal- 
thy, when infection is raging around us. If an 
accumulation of filth in our neighborhood, were 
sending forth foul stench and pestilential vapors 
on every side, we should not plead as a reason for 
letting it remain, that we were striving to prevent 
a like accumulation within our own doors. Dis- 
ease would not less certainly invade us, because 
the source of it was not prepared by ourselves. 
The infection of moral evil is as perilous as that 
of the plague. We have a personal interest in 
the prevalence of order and good principles on 
every side. If any member of the social body 
suffer, all must suffer with it. This is God's ordi- 
nation and his merciful ordination. It is thus, that 
he summons us to watch over our brother for his 
good. In this city, where the children are taught 
2 



18 DISCOURSE. 

chiefly in public schools, all parents have peculiar 
reason for seeking that all classes of society be 
improved. 

Let me add one more reply to the excuse for 
neglecting others, drawn from the necessity of at- 
tending to our own families. True, we must at- 
tend to our families ; but what is the great end 
which we should propose in regard to our chil- 
dren ? Is it, to train them up for themselves only ? 
to shut them up in their own pleasures ? to give 
them a knowledge, by which they may serve their 
private interests ? Should it not be our first care, to 
breathe into them the spirit of Christians ? to give 
them a generous interest in our race ? to fit them 
to live and to die for their fellow-beings ? Is not 
this the true education ? And can we then educate 
them better, than by giving them, in our own per- 
sons, examples of a true concern for our less pros- 
perous fellow-creatures ? Should not our common 
tones awaken in them sympathy with the poor, 
and ignorant, and depraved? Should not the 
influences of home fit them to go forth as the 
benefactors of their race? This is a Christian 
education. This is worth all accomplishments. 
Give to society a generous, disinterested son or 
daughter, and you will pay with interest the debt 
you owe it. Blessed is that home, where such 



DISCOURSE. 19 

members are formed, to be heads of future families 
and fountains of pure influence to the communi- 
ties of which they form a part. In this respect 
our education is most deficient. Whilst we pay 
profusely for superficial accomplishments; very lit- 
tle is done to breathe a noble, heroic, self-sacri- 
ficing spirit into the young. 

In reply to these remarks, ill-boding scepticism 
will cry out, " Why all this labor ? Society can- 
not be improved. Its evils cannot be done away." 
But this croaking has little significance to one, who 
believes in Christ, the divinely ordained Regenera- 
tor of the world, and who compares, in the light 
of history, the present with past times. On these 
authorities, I maintain that society can be im- 
proved. I am confident, that this city would 
become a new place, a new creation, were the 
intelligent and good to seek in earnest to spread 
their intelligence and goodness. We have pow- 
ers enough here for a mighty change, were they 
faithfully used, I would add, that God per- 
mits evils for this very end, that they should 
be resisted and subdued. He intends that this 
world shall grow better and happier, not through 
his own immediate agency, but through the la- 
bors and sufferings of benevolence. This world 
is left, in a measure, to the power of evil, that 
it should become a monument, a trophy to the 



20 DISCOURSE. 

power of goodness. The greatness of its crimes 
and woes is not a ground for despair, but a 
call to greater effort. On our earth the Divine 
Philanthropist has begun a war with evil. His 
cross is erected to gather together soldiers for the 
conflict, and victory is written in his blood. The 
spirit which Jesus Christ breathes, has already- 
proved itself equal to this warfare. How much 
has it already done to repress ferocity in Christian 
nations, to purify domestic life, to abolish or miti- 
gate slavery, to provide asylums for disease and 
want ? These are but its first fruits. In the pro- 
gress already made by communities under its in- 
fluences, we are taught that society is not destined 
to repeat itself perpetually, to stand still forever. 
We learn, that great cities need not continue to be 
sinks of pollution. No man has seized the grand 
peculiarity of the present age, who does not see in 
it the means and material of a vast and beneficent 
social change. The revolution which we are 
called to advance, has in truth begun. The great 
distinction of our times, is a diffusion of intelligence 
and refinement and of the spirit of progress through 
a vastly wider sphere than formerly. The middle 
and laboring classes have means of improvement 
not dreamed of in earlier times ; and why stop 
here ? Why not increase these means where now en- 
joyed ? Why not extend them, where they are not 



DISCOURSE. 21 

possessed ? Why shall any portion of the commu- 
nity be deprived of light, of sympathy, of the aids 
by which they may rise to comfort and virtue ? 

At the present moment, it is singularly unreason- 
able to doubt and despair of the improvement of 
society. Providence is placing before our eyes, in 
broad light, the success of efforts for the meliora- 
tion of human affairs. I might refer to the change 
produced among ourselves within a few years, by the 
exertions of good men for the suppression of intem- 
perance, the very vice which seemed the most in- 
veterate, and which, more than all others, spreads 
poverty and crime. But this moral revolution in our 
own country sinks into nothing, when compared with 
the amazing and almost incredible work now in pro- 
gress on the other side of the ocean. A few years 
ago, had we been called to name the country of 
all others most degraded, beggared, and hopelessly 
crushed by intemperance, we should have selected 
Ireland. There men and women, old and young, 
were alike swept away by what seemed the irresist- 
ible torrent. Childhood was baptized into drunk- 
enness. x\nd now, in the short space of two or 
three years, this vice of ages has almost been root- 
ed out. In a moral point of view, the Ireland of 
the past is vanished. A new Ireland has started 
into life. Three millions of her population have 
taken the pledge of total abstinence, and instances 



22 DISCOURSE. 

of violating the pledge are very, very rare. The 
great national anniversaries, on which the whole 
laboring population used to be dissolved in excess, 
are now given to innocent pleasures. The excise 
on ardent spirits has now been diminished nearly 
half a million sterling. History records no rev- 
olution like this. It is the grand event of the 
present day. Father Mathew, the leader in this 
moral revolution, ranks far above the heroes and 
statesmen of the times. As Protestants, we smile 
at the old legends of the Catholic Church ; but 
here is something greater, and it is true. However 
we may question the claims of her departed saints, 
she has a living minister, if he may be judged from 
one work, who deserves to be canonized, and whose 
name should be placed in the calendar not far be- 
low Apostles. And is this an age, in which to be 
sceptical as to radical changes in society, as to the 
recovery of the mass of men from brutal ignorance 
and still more brutal vice ? 

The remarks which have now been made are 
needed at the present moment. Our city is grow- 
ing, and we are impatient for its more rapid growth, 
as if size and numbers were happiness. We are 
anxious to swell our population. Is it not worth 
our while to inquire, what kind of a population we 
are to gather here ? Are we so blind as to be will- 



DISCOURSE. 



23 



ing and anxious to repeat the experience of other 
cities ? Are we willing to increase only our phy- 
sical comforts, our material wealth ? Do we not 
know, that great cities have hitherto drawn togeth- 
er the abandoned ? have bred a horde of ignorant, 
profligate, criminal poor ? have been deformed by 
the horrible contrasts of luxury and famine, of 
splendor and abject wo ? Do we not know, that, 
among the indigent and laborious classes of great 
cities, the mortality is fearfully great in comparison 
with that of the country, a result to be traced to 
the pestilential atmosphere which these people 
breathe, to the filth, darkness and dampness of 
their dwellings, to the suffering, comfortless condi- 
tion of their children, and to the gross vices which 
spring up from ignorance and destitution ? Do we 
want no better destiny for this our dear and hon- 
ored metropolis ? You will not suspect me of be- 
ing a foe to what are called improvements. Let 
our city grow. Let railroads connect it with the 
distant West. Let commerce link it with the re- 
motest East. But, whilst its wealth and numbers 
grow, let its means of intelligence, religion, virtue, 
domestic purity and fraternal union grow faster. 
Let us be more anxious for moral than physical 
growth. May God withhold prosperity, unless it 
is to be inspired, hallowed, ennobled by public 



24 DISCOURSE. 

spirit, by institutions for higher education, and by 
increasing concern of the enlightened and opulent 
for the ignorant and poor. If prosperity is to 
narrow and harden us, to divide us into castes of 
high and low, to corrupt the rich by extravagance 
and pride, and to create a more reckless class of 
poor, then God avert it from us. But prosperity 
need not be so abused. It admits of noble uses. 
It may multiply the means of good. It may mul- 
tiply teachers of truth and virtue. It may make 
the desert places of society blossom as the rose. 
To this end may our prosperity be consecrated. 
Thus may we requite the Author of all good. 

How we may accomplish the good work now 
set before us, I have not time to say. I would 
only ask your attention to one means of improving 
our city, to which our attention is particularly 
called by the occasion which has brought us togeth- 
er. I refer to the ministry at large. The reasons 
of this institution are too obvious to require labored 
exposition. That those classes of society, which 
enjoy fewest advantages of education, peculiarly 
need instruction and the voice of the living teacher ; 
that those, whose habits, conditions and wants ex- 
clude them, in effect, from our churches, should be 
visited in their homes by the ministers of Christ- 
ianity, who does not see and acknowledge ? If 



DISCOURSE. 25 

we, with every means of culture, need the Christ- 
ian ministry, the poor need it more. Is it not a 
duty, and should we not rejoice, to send forth faith- 
ful, enlightened men, whose office shall be, to 
strengthen those whom corrupt influences are 
sweeping from duty with peculiar power, to guide 
those who have no other counsellor, to admonish 
and cheer those who are pressed with heaviest 
temptations, to awaken the minds of those who are 
almost unconscious of their intellectual powers, to 
breathe fortitude into those who suffer most, to open 
a better world to those to whom this world is dark- 
ened, and above all to snatch their children from 
ruin, to protect the young who seem born to a her- 
itage of want or crime ? The ministry devoted to 
these offices is undeniably a wise, Christian, no- 
ble institution. This evening you are called to 
contribute to its support. Do so cheerfully. You 
are not called to uphold a plan of doubtful charity, 
or to send teachers to remote regions, where years 
of anxious labor must be spent on an unbroken, 
unthankful soil, before the fruit can appear. You 
are invited to sustain an institution, seated in the 
heart of our city, and which, as you know, is send- 
ing the waters of life through our own population. 
Its chapels, Sunday schools, libraries, are in the 
midst of you. The doors, to which its ministers 



26 DISCOURSE. 

carry counsel and consolation, are near your own. 
You see its influences this moment in these chil- 
dren. Its aim is, to remove the saddest features of 
our civilization, the deep corruption of great cities ; 
and in the energy which it now puts forth, we have 
a pledge of a happier era, in which society will 
prosper without the terrible sacrifice of so many of 
its members. May this good work go on and 
spread, and may future generations bless us for 
saving them from some of the worst evils which 
darken our own age. 

#* M. .*/. M. M. 

TV" Tv "If" TV* 

I have now closed my remarks on the general 
topic suggested by this occasion. But the work of 
the Ministry for the poor has brought to my mind 
solemn and tender thoughts, which I know you 
will not think foreign to our present meeting, and 
which it will be a relief to my own spirit to ex- 
press. The Ministry at Large in this city was chief- 
ly originated and established by one of my earliest, 
dearest friends, who closed his eyes, not many 
months since, on a foreign shore. Allow me to 
pay a tribute to his memory; and in doing this, al- 
low me to speak with the freedom of friendship. 
1 have not labored to collect materials for a regu- 
lar history of this distinguished man, for I believe, 
that 1 shall be more just to his memory in giving 



DISCOURSE. 27 

reminiscences of our long intercourse, than in report- 
ing a series of events. 1 will utter, with all simpli- 
city, what rises to my memory, and I hope that the 
clear image which I bear of my departed friend 
may be transferred to the hearts of my hearers. 

My acquaintance with Joseph Tuckerman 
began about forty-seven years ago, and, during 
most of the time which has since elapsed, we lived 
together as brothers, communicating thoughts, feel- 
ings, reproofs, encouragements, with a faithfulness 
not often surpassed. I think of him with peculiar 
pleasure, as he was, perhaps, the most signal exam- 
ple, within my remembrance, of Improvement ; of 
a man overcoming obstacles, and making progress 
under disadvantages. When I first met him in col- 
lege, he had the innocence of childhood ; he was 
sympathizing, generous, without a stain of the 
vices to which youth is prone ; but he did not 
seem to have #ny serious views of life. Three 
years he passed almost as a holiday, unconscious of 
his privileges, uninterested in bis severer studies, 
surrendering himself to sportive impulses, which, 
however harmless in themselves, consumed the 
hours which should have been given to toil. How 
often has he spoken to me, with grief and compunc- 
tion, of his early wasted life ! In his last college 
year, a change began, and the remote cause of it 



28 DISCOURSE. 

he often spoke of with lively sensibility. His 
mother, he was accustomed to say, was one of 
the best of women. She had instilled into him 
the truths of religion with* a mother's love, tem- 
pered with no common wisdom. The seed was 
sown in a kindly nature. The religious princi- 
ple, which at first had only been a restraint from 
evil, began to incite to good ; and to this, the pro- 
gress and greatness of his life were mainly due. 
On leaving college he gave himself to the Christ- 
ian ministry ; but with the unchastened inconsider- 
ation of his youth, he plunged into its duties with lit- 
tle preparation. The consequence was a succession 
of mortifications most painful at the time, but of 
which he afterwards spoke as a merciful discipline. 
So unpromising was the opening of a career of sin- 
gular energy and usefulness. 

By the kind ordination of Providence he was 
settled in a small, obscure parish, which offered 
nothing to gratify ambition or to dissipate the mind. 
Years passed in a life which we should call mo- 
notonous, but which was singularly fitted to give 
him the calmness and steadiness which he needed. 
Here he became a student, a faithful, laborious 
student, and accumulated much knowledge, and 
devoted no little time to the thorny topics of the- 
ology. Thus the defects of his early intellectual 



DISCOURSE. 



29 



training were repaired, and his faculties sharpened 
and invigorated. 

He was not, however, made to wear out life in 
such pursuits. His strength did not lie in abstract 
speculation. Had he given himself to this, he 
would never have forced his way to new or great 
views. His heart w r as his great power. To his 
moral, religious, benevolent sentiments, he owed 
chiefly the expansion of his intellectual nature. 
Having laid a good foundation by study, an uner- 
ring instinct taught him that study was not his vo- 
cation. His heart yearned for active life. He 
became more and more penetrated with the mis- 
eries and crimes of the world. As he sat in his 
lonely study, the thought of what men endured on 
the land and the sea withdrew him from his books. 
He was irresistibly attracted towards his fellow- 
creatures by their sufferings, and, still more, by 
a consciousness that there was something great be- 
neath their sufferings, by a sympathy with their 
spiritual wants. His study window looked on the 
sea ; and the white sail, as it skirted the horizon^ 
reminded him of the ignorance and moral perils 
of the sailor ; and accordingly he was the first man 
in the country to make an effort for the improve- 
ment and instruction of this class of men. The 
society which he instituted for this end did not an- 



30 DISCOURSE. 

swer its purpose, for he knew little or nothing of 
the people he wished to serve, nor was the com- 
munity then awake, as it now is, to the work of 
reform. But the spirit which was moving in him, 
was not depressed by failure. He soon gave him- 
self with zeal to the missionary cause ; thought, 
talked and wrote about it with characteristic ener- 
gy ; and, had not family ties prevented, would have 
devoted himself, I believe, to the service of the 
heathen. 

Whilst the passion for conflict with evil was 
struggling within him, his health failed, and for a 
time he had reason to fear that he was to be cut off 
from usefulness. But the same gracious Provi- 
dence, which had ordained, with signal kindness, 
the events of his past existence, was guiding him 
through this dark passage to the great sphere and 
purpose of his life. His disease incapacitated him 
for answering the demand made upon his voice by 
the pulpit. He felt that he must cease from regu- 
lar preaching ; and what, then, was he to do ? In 
a favored hour, the thought of devoting himself to 
the service of the poor of this city entered his 
mind, and met a response within which gave it the 
character of a divine monition. He consulted me, 
and in obedience to a long-rooted conviction, that 
society needs new ministries and agencies for its re- 



DISCOURSE. 31 

demption, and that men, inspired with self-sacri- 
ficing zeal for its redemption, are God's best gifts 
to the world, I encouraged his faith and hope. 

At first, he entered almost tremblingly the houses 
of the poor, where he was a stranger, to offer his 
sympathy and friendship. But " the sheep knew 
the voice of the shepherd." The poor recognised 
by instinct their friend, and from the first moment 
a relation of singular tenderness and confidence was 
established between them. That part of his life I 
well remember, for he came often to pour into my 
ear and heart his experience and success. I well 
remember the effect, which contact with the poor 
produced on his mind. He had loved them when 
he knew little of them ; when their distresses came 
to him through the imagination. But he was a 
proof, that no speculation or imagination can do the 
work of actual knowledge. So deep was the sym- 
pathy, so intense the interest which the poor excit- 
ed in him, that it seemed as if a new fountain of 
love had been opened within him. No favorite of 
fortune could have repaired to a palace, where the 
rays of royal favor were to be centered on him, with 
a more eager spirit and quicker step, than our friend 
hastened to the abodes of want in the darkest al- 
leys of our city. How often have I stood hum- 
bled before the deep, spiritual love, which burst from 



32 DISCOURSE. 

him in those free communications which few en- 
joyed beside myself. I cannot forget one evening, 
when, in conversing with the late Dr. Follen and 
myself on the claims of the poor, and on the cold- 
heartedness of society, he not only deeply moved 
us, but filled us with amazement by his depth of 
feeling and energy of utterance ; nor can I forget, 
how, when he left us, Dr. Follen, a man fitted by 
his own spirit to judge of greatness, said to me, He 
is a great man. 

This strong love for his fellow-creatures was not 
a wild enthusiasm. It was founded on clear, de- 
liberate perception of the spiritual nature, the im- 
mortal destination of every human being. Who- 
ever discerns truly, and feels deeply, this greatness 
of humanity, this relation of the soul to God, must 
indeed pass for an enthusiast in the present day ; 
for our state of society is, in a great degree, a de- 
nial of the higher rights, claims and destinies of a 
human being. 

It was this love for the poor which gave to our 
friend's labors their efficacy, which made his min- 
istry a living thing, and which gave it perpetuity. 
This house and our other chapels had their founda- 
tion in this love. He could not be kept from the 
poor. Cold, storms, sickness, severe pain, could 
not shut him up at home. Nothing but his domes* 



DISCOURSE. 33 

tic ties prevented him from taking up his abode 
among the indigent. He would sometimes say, that 
could he, on leaving the world, choose his sphere, 
it would be that of a ministering spirit to the poor ; 
and-if the spirits of departed good men return to 
our world, his, I doubt not, might be found in the 
haunts of want and wo. In this, as I have already- 
said, there was no blinding enthusiasm. He saw 
distinctly the vices which are often found among 
the poor, their craft, and sloth, and ingratitude. 
His ministry was carried on in the midst of their 
frequent filth and recklessness. The coarsest re- 
alities pressed him on every side. These were not 
the scenes to make an enthusiast. But amidst 
these he saw, now the fainter signs, now the tri- 
umphs of a divine virtue. It was his delight to re- 
late examples of patience, disinterestedness, piety, 
amidst severest sufferings. These taught him, that, 
in the poorest hovels, he was walking among im- 
mortals, and his faith in the divinity within the soul 
turned his ministry into joy. 

Dr. Tuckerman has sometimes been called the 
founder of the Ministry at Large. If by this lan- 
guage be meant, that he first planned and established 
a distinct ministry for the poor, the language is in- 
correct. Before his time, there had been men, who 
had devoted themselves exclusively and faithfully 
3 



34 DISCOURSE. 

to the religious instruction of those, who cannot be 
gathered into the ordinary places of worship. His 
merit lay in giving a new life to the work, in show- 
ing what it could do, in raising it from neglect to 
a high place among the means of regenerating the 
world, and in awakening new hopes of the improve- 
ment of what had been looked on as the hopeless 
portion of society. The greatest benefactors of 
men, are not so much those, who discover or con- 
trive wholly original and untried modes of action, 
as those who seize on familiar means or agencies, 
and exalt them into new powers. Our friend had 
hardly entered into his ministry, when he discov- 
ered its capacities. He saw, that it opened a 
sphere of usefulness which had hardly been dreamed 
of. With prophetic faith, he threw into it his 
whole soul ; and his example and success raised up 
others to confide in and to wield the same power. 
He may thus be said, in an important sense, to have 
established this ministry. Through him it has taken 
root in men's faith. It has passed, with all the ener- 
gy which he imparted to it, into other hands, and is 
seen and felt to deserve a place among our perma- 
nent institutions. Much of this success was un- 
doubtedly due to his singleness of heart ; but much 
also to his clear insight into the principles of hu- 
man nature, which rendered the poor open to good 
influences, and into the means, by which human 



DISCOURSE. 35 

beings in their condition may be most effectually 
approached. 

In carrying on this great work, Dr. Tuckerman 
did not stand alone. He received important aids 
from sympathizing friends. He began his labors 
under the patronage of the American Unitarian 
Association. At length, to insure the continuance 
of the Ministry at Large and to extend its opera- 
tion, a Union, or, as it is called, a Fraternity of 
several Churches in the city was formed, to take 
this important work under its guidance and care. 
There were some among us, who had come to feel, 
that a Christian church was established not only 
for the edification of its own members, but for the 
general cause of Christianity ; and that it was espe- 
cially bound to extend the means of moral and re- 
ligious instruction to such families or individuals in 
its neighborhood, as from poverty or any other 
causes were deprived of the benefit of the public 
ordinances of religion. In conformity to this idea, 
the Fraternity was formed, on a simple but efficient 
plan. In each of the churches disposed to co-op- 
erate for the support of the Ministry at Large, a 
branch-association is established, the members of 
which contribute to this work according to their 
means or sense of duty, and which is represented in a 
central board, to whose discretion the management 
of the whole concern is entrusted. By this arrange- 



36 DISCOURSE. 

ment various good ends are accomplished. The min- 
istry of the poor has become linked with our most im- 
portant religious institution, and may be hoped to 
partake of the durableness of the regular ministry. 
The churches are knit together by a new bond, not 
one of creeds or tribunals or organizations to 
accumulate power, but the holy bond of charity ; 
and still more, they are brought to recognise dis- 
tinctly and practically their obligation to look be- 
yond themselves and to labor for the extension of 
christian truth and virtue. 

This association gave but a small salary to Dr. 
Tuckerman, but he desired nothing beyond what 
was necessary to save him from debt ; and this he 
did desire. On this point he was peculiarly sensi- 
tive, so much so, that a notice of him would be im- 
perfect, in which this trait should be omitted. He 
shrunk from the slightest pecuniary embarrassment 
as an intolerable evil. " Owe no man anything," 
was a precept which he kept in sight in all his do- 
mestic arrangements ; and by his strict economy 
and wise providence, he was able to spend a long 
life and bring up a large family, without once an- 
ticipating his income, or without contracting a debt. 
Some of his friends of looser habits received lessons 
of wisdom and reproof in this respect from his coun- 
sel and example. 

As to the great ideas which ruled over and 



DISCOURSE. 



37 



guided his ministry, and as to the details of his 
operations, they may be gathered best from the re- 
ports, which he was accustomed to make to the so- 
cieties under whose patronage he acted. He pub- 
lished indeed a volume on this subject ; but it is 
hardly worthy of his abilities or his cause. It was 
prepared under the pressure of disease, when his 
constitution was so exhausted by excessive labor, 
that he was compelled to forego all out-door duties. 
He wrote it with a morbid impatience, as if he 
might be taken away before giving it to the world. 
It ought in truth to be regarded as an extempora- 
neous effusion. It was hurried through the press, 
whilst the friends, whom he had consulted, were 
hoping that it was undergoing a patient revision. 
Thus hastily composed it was necessarily diffuse, 
a fault which marks his most careful writings. It 
might indeed have been compressed to half the 
size ; and, as might be expected, it fell almost dead 
from the press. This sore trial he bore with great 
equanimity ; but he felt it deeply. The saddest 
words I heard from him in his sickness, were those 
in which he expressed his regrets at having pre- 
cipitated this publication. 

It is in his reports chiefly that the history of his 
ministry is to be studied. These are a treasure for 
the man who would act wisely on the poor. They 



38 DISCOURSE. 

are records of an uncommonly various experience. 
They show his insight into the temptations, perils, 
hearts of the depressed and indigent; and whilst 
exposing their errors and sins, breathe a never-fail- 
ing sympathy. It is easy to see in these, that the 
great principle which animated his ministry, was an 
immovable faith in God's merciful purposes to- 
wards the poor. Their condition never for a mo- 
ment seemed to him to separate them from their 
Creator. On the contrary, he felt God's presence 
in the narrow comfortless dwelling of the poor, as 
he felt it nowhere else. 

His perpetual recognition of the spiritual, immor- 
tal nature of the poor gave to all his intercourse a 
character of tenderness and respect. He spoke to 
them plainly, boldly, but still as to the children of 
the same infinite Father. He trusted in man's 
moral nature, however bruised and crushed : he was 
sure that no heart could resist him, if he could but 
convince it of his sincere brotherly concern. One 
rule he observed almost too instinctively, to make it 
a rule. He always spoke encouragingly. He felt 
that the weight, under which the poor man's spirit 
was already sinking, needed no addition from the 
harshness of his spiritual guide. He went forth in 
the power of brotherly love, and found it a divine 
armor. On this point too much cannot be said. 



DISCOURSE. 39 

The city of Boston has the honor, above all cities, 
of proving how much can be accomplished by a 
generous, affectionate mode of speech and action, 
among those classes of society, which it has been 
thought can only be reached by menace, sternness 
and terror. Dr. Tuckerman and his successors in 
their intercourse with the poor, and the Rev. Mr. 
Taylor in his labors among seamen, have taught 
us, that men, in the most unpromising conditions, 
are to be treated as men ; that under coarse jackets 
and even rags, may be found tender and noble 
hearts ; and that the heart, even when hardened, 
still responds to the voice of a true friend and 
brother. The horrible thought, that certain portions 
of society are to be kept down by appeals to their 
superstition and fear, has here received a refutation 
very cheering to the friends of humanity. Dr. 
Tuckerman carried among the poor his own high- 
est views of religion, and often spoke to me of the 
eagerness with which they were received. He 
was indeed too wise a man to give them in an ab- 
stract form, or in technical language. They 
were steeped in his heart before they found their 
way to his lips ; and flowing warm and fresh from 
this fountain, they were drunk in as living waters, 
by the thirsty souls of the poor. 

A great secret of Dr. Tuckerman's success lay 



40 DISCOURSE. 

in his strong interest in individuals. It wis not in 
his nature to act on masses by general methods ; 
he threw his soul into particular cases. Every 
sufferer whom he visited, seemed to awaken in 
him a special affection and concern. I remember 
well the language which he once used in regard 
to a man who had gone far astray. He said to me 
with deep emotion, " I want that man's soul ; I 
must save him." He made the worst feel, that they 
had a friend, and by his personal interest linked 
them anew with their race. 

Let me add another explication of his success. 
He sought for something to love in all. He seized 
on anything good, which might remain in the fallen 
spirit; on any domestic affection, any generous 
feeling, which might have escaped the wreck of the 
character. If he could but touch one chord of love, 
one tender recollection of home, one feeling of 
shame or sorrow for the past, no matter how faintly, 
he rejoiced and took courage, like the good physi- 
cian, who, in watching over the drowned, detects 
a flutter of the pulse or the feeblest sign of life. 
His hope in such cases tended to fulfil itself. His 
tones awakened a like hope in the fallen. " He 
did not break the bruised reed or quench the 
smoking flax." 

He began his ministry expecting to accomplish 



DISCOURSE. 41 

his work by visiting and conversation, and this he 
always relied on as the most important means of 
usefulness. But he soon found, that social worship 
could not be dispensed with, that this was a want 
of human nature, that the poor, by the mere circum- 
stance of leaving their homes and coming together 
in decent apparel for the worship of God, received 
a salutary impulse, and that, in this way, they could 
be brought most effectually to act on one another 
for good. He therefore resumed preaching, though 
unequal to the effort. The effect of this new situ- 
ation in awakening his powers as a preacher was 
striking. In his sermons written for common con- 
gregations, he had never been very attractive ; but 
his free, extemporaneous, ervent address, drew 
round him a crowd of poor who hung on his lips ; 
and those who were not poor were moved by his 
fervent utterance. His idea of preaching under- 
went a great chang-e. Whilst abstaining from 
public complaint, he would in private mourn over 
the lifeless discussions of the pulpit, which too 
often make the church cold as the grave. 

His influence over the poor was a good deal in- 
creased by the variety of forms in which he exerted 
it. He was not merely a spiritual guide. He had • 
much skill in the details of common life, w r as a 
good economist, understood much about the trades 



42 DISCOURSE. 

and labors in which the poor are most occupied, 
could suggest expedients for diminishing expense 
and multiplying comforts, and by these homely 
gifts won the confidence of the poor. He could 
sympathise with them in their minutest wants and 
sufferings, and opened a way for his high truths by 
being a wise counsellor as to their worldly interests. 
At the very moment when he passed with some for 
an enthusiast, he was teaching household manage- 
ment to a poor woman, or contriving employment 
for her husband, or finding a place for her child. 

This reminds me of one branch of his labors in 
which he took special interest. He felt deeply for 
the children of the poor. They were in his mind 
habitually as he walked the streets, and when he 
entered the indigent dwelling. He used to stop 
to inquire into the residence and history of the 
begging child. He visited the market and the 
wharf, to discover the young, who were wasting 
the day in sloth, taking their first lessons in the art 
of theft. He was unwearied in his efforts to place 
these children in schools; and multitudes owe to 
him their moral safety and the education which 
prepared them for respectable lives. Through 
his means, not a few, who had escaped all domestic 
control and entered on the downward path of 
crime, were sent to the house of reformation ; and he 



DISCOURSE. 43 

delighted to meet or speak of those who under this 
influence had been restored to innocence. To the 
interest which he awakened in the unprotected 
children of the poor, we owe chiefly the establish- 
ment of the Farm School. If any subject pecu- 
liarly occupied his thoughts and heart, it was the 
duty of the city to that portion of the young, who, 
if not adopted by society, must grow up to guilt 
and shame and public punishment. If his benev- 
olence ever broke out in bitter reproach, it was in 
speaking of the general insensibility to the neglect- 
ed child, trained up by its parents to beggary and 
fraud, accustomed to breathe the fumes of intem- 
perance, and left to look on vice as its natural 
state. Such was his influence, that street-beggary 
sensibly declined among us, an effect indicating 
an extent of good influence, not easily appre- 
hended. 

To show his generous modes of viewing the 
poor, I would state, that for a time he assembled 
the children one afternoon in the week to give them 
instruction in natural history. He took great de- 
light in this branch of knowledge, and had stored 
up in his mind a large number of facts, illustrative 
of the wisdom and goodness of God in the crea- 
tion. These he used to unfold, and was able to 
awaken the curiosity and fix the attention of his 
young hearers ; of which indeed they furnished 



44 DISCOURSE. 

proof, by giving him a portion of time usually spent 
in play. His want of strength, which compelled 
him to relinquish the pulpit, obliged him to give 
up this mode of teaching after a short trial. 

I mention these various exertions as illustrative 
of the enlarged spirit which he carried into his work. 
His great object w T as to promote religion ; but re- 
ligion did not stand alone in his mind. He felt its 
connexion with intellectual cultivation, with wise 
household management, with neatness and propriety 
of manners, and especially with the discharge of 
parental duty ; and his labors may be said to have 
covered almost all the departments of social life. 
The truth is, that his heart was in his work. He did 
not think of it as the work of a day, or of a few years, 
but of life. He wanted to grow old and die in it. 
The world opened nothing to him in all its various 
callings more honorable, more godlike. His ambi- 
tion, of which he had his share, and his disinterest- 
ed and religious principles all flowed into this chan- 
nel ; so that he acted with undivided energy, with 
a whole soul. Hence he became fruitful in expedi- 
ents, detected new modes of influence, wound his 
way to his end gently and indirectly, and contrived 
to turn almost every thing to account. Some 
indeed complained, that he dragged his poor into 
all companies and conversation. But we must 
learn to bear the infirmities* of a fervent spirit, and 



DISCOURSE, 45 

to forgive a love which is stronger than our own, 
though it may happen to want the social tact, in 
which the indifferent and trifling are apt to make 
the most proficiency. 

On one subject Dr. Tuckerman agreed in opin- 
ion and feeling with all who visit and labor for the 
poor. ' He felt, that the poverty of our city was 
due chiefly to Intemperance, and that this enhances 
infinitely the woes of a destitute condition. A 
poor family, into which this vice had not found its 
w r ay, was a privileged place in his sight. Poverty 
without drunkenness hardly seemed to rank as an 
evil, by the side of that which drunkenness had 
generated. If there was one of our citizens whom 
he honored as eminently the friend of the poor, it 
was that unwearied philanthropist, who, whilst his 
heart and hands are open to all the claims of 
misery, has selected as his peculiar care, the cause 
of temperance. * Dr. Tuckerman's spirit groaned 
under the evils of intemperance, as the ancient 
prophets under the burden of the woes which 
they were sent to denounce. The fumes of a 
distillery were, to his keen feelings, more noisome 
and deadly than the vapors of putrefaction and 
pestilence. He looked on a shop for vending ardent 

* Moses Grant. 



46 DISCOURSE. 

spirits, as he would have looked on a, pitfal opening 
into hell. At the sight of men, who, under all 
our present lights, are growing rich by spreading 
these poisons through the land, he felt, I doubt not, 
how the curses of the lost and the groans of ruined 
wives and children were rising up against them. 
I know, for I have heard, the vehemence of en- 
treaty with which Dr. Tuckerman sometimes 
approached the intemperate, and he has often 
related to me his persevering efforts for their re- 
covery. Could he have bequeathed to the sober 
and christian part of this city and Commonwealth 
his intense convictions in regard to this vice, it 
would soon be repressed ; the sanction of public 
authority would no longer be given to its detestable 
haunts ; one chief source of the miseries of our 
civilization would be dried up. 

The influence of Dr. Tuckerman's labors was 
not confined to this city or country. His reports 
found their way to Europe, and awakened similar 
exertions. When his declining health obliged him 
to cross the ocean not many years since, he met in 
England a cordial welcome from kindred spirits. 
His society was coveted by the good and emi- 
nent, and his experience listened to with pro- 
found respect. It was his happiness to meet 
there Rammohun Roy. I was informed by a friend, 



DISCOURSE. 47 

who was present at their interviews, that this wise 
and great Hindoo, whose oriental courtesy over- 
flowed towards all, still distinguished our country- 
man by the affectionate veneration with which he 
embraced him. In France he was received with 
much kindness by the Baron Degerando, the distin- 
guished philosopher and philanthropist, whose ex- 
tensive and profound researches into poverty and 
into the means of its prevention or cure have left 
him no rival whether in the present or past times. 
This virtuous man, whose single name is enough to 
redeem France from the reproach, sometimes thrown 
on her, of indifference to the cause of humanity, has 
testified in private letters and in his writings his 
high consideration for the character and labors of 
our departed friend. In truth, Dr. Tuckerman's in- 
fluence is now felt on both sides the ocean, and his 
name, linked as it is with the ministry of the poor, 
is one of the few among us which will be trans- 
mitted to remote posterity. There is hardly a 
more enduring monument, on which a man can 
inscribe his name, than a beneficent institution 
founded on the principles of human nature, and 
which is to act on large portions of society. 
Schemes of policy, accumulations of power, and 
almost all the writings of an age pass away. The 
men who make most noise, are lost and forgotten 



48 DISCOURSE. 

like the blasts of a trumpet. But Institutions, 
wrought into a people's habits, and especially incor- 
porated with Christianity, that immortal truth, that 
everlasting kingdom, endure for ages. Our friend 
has left a name to live ; not that a name is worth 
an anxious thought ; but the ambitious, who mis- 
take for it the shout of a brief day, may be use- 
fully reminded, that it is the meed of those who are 
toiling in obscure paths, and on whom they hardly 
deign to bestow a passing thought. Dr. Tucker- 
man was not wholly raised above this motive ; and 
who of us is ? But his work was incomparably 
dearer to him than renown ; he toiled for years 
without dreaming of the reputation it was to be- 
stow ; and in that season of small things he used 
to say, that if the rich and great, who helped to 
sustain him, could understand the dignity and hap- 
piness of his calling, they would covet it themselves, 
and choose to partake the toil which they deputed 
to another. 

There was one testimony to his usefulness which 
gave him pleasure, and that was the sympathy of 
christians who differed from him in opinion. He 
went among the poor to serve the purposes of no 
sect, but to breathe into them the spirit and hopes 
of Jesus Christ ; and in all sects he found hearty 
well-wishers, and perhaps he left on none of us 



DISCOURSE. 49 

deeper impression of his piety, than on those with 
whose peculiarities he had least communion. 

Among the propitious circumstances of the life 
of Dr. Tuckerman, I ought not to pass over his 
domestic ties. He was twice married, and each of 
these connexions gave him an invaluable friend. 
I was particularly acquainted with his last wife, 
with whom a large part of his life was spent, and 
am happy to pay this tribute to her singular worth. 
Her reserve and shrinking delicacy threw a veil 
over her beautiful character. She was little known 
bey nd her home ; but there she silently spread 
around her that soft, pure light, the preciousness 
of which is never fully understood till it is quenched. 
The good Providence which adapts blessings to 
our wants, was particularly manifested in giving to 
our friend such a companion. Her calm, gentle 
w T isdom, her sweet humility, her sympathy, which, 
though tender, was too serene to disturb her clear 
perceptions, fitted her to act instinctively, and 
without the consciousness of either party, on his 
more sanguine, ardent mind. She was truly a 
spirit of good, diffusing a tranquillizing influence 
too mildly to be thought of and therefore more sure. 
The blow which took her from him, left a wound 
which time could not heal. Had his strength been 
continued, so that he could have gone from the 
4 



50 DISCOURSE. 

house of mourning to the haunts of poverty, he 
would have escaped, for a good part of the day, the 
sense of his bereavement. But a few minutes' 
walk in the street now sent him wearied home. 
There, the loving eye which had so long brightened 
at his entrance, was to shed its mild beam on him 
no more. There the voice, that had daily inquired 
into his labors, and like another conscience had 
whispered a sweet approval, was still. There the 
sympathy, which had pressed with tender hand 
his aching head, and by its nursing care had post- 
poned the hour of exhaustion and disease, was gone. 
He was not indeed left alone ; for filial love and 
reverence spared no soothing offices ; but these, 
though felt and spoken of as most precious, could 
not take the place of what had been removed. 
This great loss produced no burst of grief. It was 
a still deep sorrow, the feeling of a mighty void, 
the last burden which the spirit can cast off. 
His attachment to life from this moment sensibly 
declined. In seasons of peculiar sensibility he 
wished to be gone. He kept near him the likeness 
of his departed friend, and spoke to me more than 
once of the solace which he had found in it, as what 
I in my more favored lot could not comprehend. 
He heard her voice from another world, and his 
anticipations of that world, always strong, became 
now more vivid and touching. 



DISCOURSE. 51 

Enough has been said to illustrate the singular 
social virtues of Dr. Tuckerman. It is however 
true, that in his casual intercourse with strangers, 
he did not make as favorable an impression, as 
might have been expected from such a man. He 
seemed to those who saw him seldom, too self- 
conscious. His excitable temperament sometimes 
hurried him into extravagance of speech. His 
feelings sometimes pievailed over his judgment. 
He wanted skill to detect the point, beyond which 
the sympathy of the hearer could not follow him, 
so that he sometimes seemed to exact undue atten- 
tion. The truth is, that human nature even in 
very good men, is disproportioned, imperfect. We 
sometimes express our wonder at the meeting of 
elements so incongruous in the same character. But 
is there one of us so advanced, as not to know from 
inward experience the contradictions of the human 
soul ? It is cheering to think, how little our trust 
in superior goodness is impaired by these par- 
tial obscurations. No man perhaps saw more dis- 
tinctly than myself the imperfections of the good 
man of whom I speak. But my confidence in his 
great virtues was as firm, as if he had been faultless. 
There was a genuineness in his love, his disinter- 
estedness, of which I had no more doubt than of 
his existence. If ever man gave himself sincerely 
to the service of his race, it was he. — I have made 



52 DISCOURSE. 

these remarks, because I have long questioned the 
morality and wisdom of the prevalent style of in- 
discriminate praise of the dead. I fear we give a 
suspiciousness to our delineations of our friends, by 
throwing over them the hues of unreal perfection. 
I hold no man to be worthy of eulogy, who cannot 
afford to be spoken of as he was, who, after the 
worst is known, cannot inspire reverence and love. 

I have spoken of Dr. Tuckerman in relation to 
his fellow creatures, 1 should wrong him greatly if 
I did not speak of him in his highest relations. In 
these, the beauty of his character was most appar- 
ent to those, who saw farthest into his heart. Others 
admired his philanthropy ; to me his piety was more 
impressive. It partook of the warmth of his nature, 
but was calmer, wiser, purer than his other emo- 
tions. It was simple, free, omnipresent, coming 
out in unaffected utterance, coloring his common 
thoughts and feelings, and giving strength and ele- 
vation to all his virtues. It was such a piety as 
might be expected from its early history, a piety 
breathed from the lips and caught from the beam- 
ing countenance of an excellent mother. 

His religion was of the most enlarged, liberal 
character. He did not shut himself up even in 
Christianity. He took a lively interest in the tes- 
timony borne to God by nature, and in the striv- 



DISCOURSE. 53 

ings of ancient philosophy after divine truth. But 
Christianity was his rock, his defence, his nutri- 
ment, his life. He understood the character of 
Jesus by sympathy, as well as felt the need of his 
" glad tidings. " He had been a faithful student 
of the Old Testament, and had once thought of 
preparing a work on Jewish antiquities. But his 
growing reverence for the New Testament led him 
to place a vast distance between it and the ancient 
scriptures. At one period of his ministry, when 
the pressing demands of the poor compelled him 
to forego study entirely, I recollect his holding 
up to me a Greek Harmony of the Four Gospels, 
and his saying, that here was his library, that 
Christ's history was his theology, and that in the 
morning he snatched a moment for this, when 
he could find time for nothing else. 

Religion in different individuals, manifests itself 
in different forms. In him it shone forth pecu- 
liarly in faith or filial trust, and in gratitude. His 
faith in God was unbounded. It never wavered, 
never seemed to undergo a momentary eclipse. I 
have seen him under an affliction, which, in a few 
days wrought in his appearance the change of 
years ; and his trust was like a rock, his submis- 
sion entire. Much as he saw of the crimes and 
miseries of life, no doubt of the merciful purposes 



54 DISCOURSE. 

of God crossed his mind. Some ray of divine 
goodness streamed forth from the darkest trials and 
events. Undoubtedly his own love for the poor, 
helped him to comprehend, as few do, how God 
loved them. The whole creation spoke to him of 
the paternal character and infinite glory of its 
author. His filial piety called forth in him pow- 
ers which would otherwise have slumbered. He 
was naturally wanting in the poetical element. He 
had little relish for music or the fine arts, and took 
no great pleasure in the higher works of imagina- 
tion. But his piety opened his eye, ear, heart, to 
the manifestations of God in his works, revealed 
the beauty which surrounded him, and in this way 
became a source of sublime joy. On such a mind, 
religious controversies could take but a slight hold. 
He outgrew them, and hardly seemed to know 
that they existed. That which pervades, tran- 
quillizes and exalts the souls of all Christians he un- 
derstood ; and in his busy life, which carried him 
from his study, he was willing to understand noth- 
ing more. 

Congenial with this cheerful faith was the spirit 
of gratitude. In this he was probably the more 
eminent, because it was favored by his tempera- 
ment. He was naturally happy. There were 
next to no seeds of gloom, depression in his na- 



DISCOURSE. 55 

ture. Life, as he first knew it was bright, joyous, 
unclouded ; and to this cause mainly, the volatility 
of his early years was to be ascribed. As the 
magnet searches out, and gathers round itself the 
scattered ore with which it has affinity, so his spirit 
selected and attached instinctively to itself the 
more cheerful views of Providence. In such a 
nature, piety naturally took the form of gratitude. 
Thanks were the common breathings of his spirit. 
His lot seemed to him among the most favored on 
earth. His blessings did not wait to be recalled 
to his thoughts -by a set, labored search. They 
started up of themselves, and stood before him robed 
in celestial light by association with the goodness 
which bestowed them. 

From these elements of his piety, naturally grew 
up a hope of future glory, progress, happiness, more 
unmixed than I have known in others. The other 
world is commonly said to throw a brightness over 
the present. In his case, the present also threw a 
brightness over the future. His constant experience 
of God's goodness awakened anticipations of a 
larger goodness hereafter. He would talk with a 
swelling heart, and in the most genuine language, 
of immortality, of Heaven, of new access to God. 
In truth his language was such as many good men 
could not always join in. The conscious unwor- 



56 DISCOURSE. 

thiness of many good men throws occasional clouds 
over the future. But no cloud seemed ever to dim 
his prospect ; not that he was unconscious of un- 
worthiness ; not that he thought of approaching 
Infinite Purity with a claim of merit ; such a feel- 
ing never crossed his mind. But it was so natural 
to him to enjoy, his sense of God's constant good- 
ness was so vivid, and Christ's promises so accord- 
ant with his experience, that heaven came to him 
as a reality, without the ordinary effort which the 
faith and hope of most men require. 

In his last sickness, his character came out in all 
its beauty. He had not wholly lost the natural 
love of life. At times, when unpromising symptoms 
seemed to be giving way, he would use the means of 
recovery with hope. But generally he felt himself 
a dying man, whose chief work was finished, who 
had little to do with the world, but to leave it. 1 
have regretted, that I did not take notes of some of 
his conversations. It was unsafe for him to talk, 
as the least excitement increased his burning fever ; 
but when I would start an interesting topic, a flood 
of thoughts would rush into his mind, and compel 
him to give them utterance. The future state was 
of course often present to him ; and his conceptions 
of the soul's life and progress, in its new and nearer 
relations to God, to Christ, to the just made perfect, 



DISCOURSE. 57 

seemed to transport him for a time beyond the 
darkness and pains of his present lot. To show- 
that there was no morbidness in these views, I 
ought to observe, that they were mingled with the 
natural tastes and feelings, which had grown from 
his past life. In his short seasons of respite from 
exhaustion and suffering, he w r ould talk with inter- 
est of the more important events of the day, and 
would seek recreation in books which had formerly 
entertained him. He was the same man as in 
health, with nothing forced or unnatural in his ele- 
vation of mind. Me had always taken great plea- 
sure in the writings of the moralists of antiquity, 
and perhaps the last book 1 put into his hands was 
Cicero's Tusculan Questions, which he read with 
avidity and delight. So comprehensive was his 
spirit, that whilst Christ was his hope, and Christ- 
ian perfection his aspiration he still rejoiced to dis- 
cern in the great Roman, on whom Christian truth 
had not yet dawned, such deep reverence for the 
majesty of virtue. It might be expected that, " His 
ruling passion was strong in death." To the last 
moment of my intercourse with him, the poor were 
in his heart. As he had given them his life, so 
death could not divide him from them. 

One affecting view remains to be given. Dr. 
Tuckerman was a martyr to his cause. That his 
life was shortened by excessive toil cannot be 



58 DISCOURSE. 

doubted. His friends forewarned him of this result/ 
He saw the danger himself, and once and again re- 
solved to diminish his labors ; but when he retreated 
from the poor, they followed him to his house, and 
he could not resist their supplicating looks and 
tones. To my earnest and frequent remonstrance 
on this point he at times replied, that his ministry 
might need a victim, that labors beyond his strength 
might be required to show what it was capable of 
effecting, and that he was willing to suffer and to die 
for the cause. Living thus he grew prematurely old. 
His walks became more and more narrow. Then 
he was imprisoned at home. The prostration of 
strength was followed by a racking cough and 
burning fever. As we have seen, his last sickness 
was a bright testimony to his piety. But its end 
was sorrowful. By a mysterious ordination of 
Providence, the capacity of suffering often survives 
unimpaired, whilst the reason and affections seem 
to decay. So was it here. In the last hours of 
our friend, the body seemed to prevail over the 
power of thought. He died in fearful pain. He 
was borne amidst agonies into the higher world. 
At length his martyrdom ceased ; and who of us 
can utter or conceive the blessedness of the spirit, 
rising from this thick darkness into the light of 
Heaven ? 

Such was the founder of the Ministry at Large 



DISCOURSE. 59 

in this city, a man whom I thoroughly knew ; a 
man whose imperfections I could not but know, 
for they stood out on the surface of his character ; 
but who had a great heart, who was willingly a 
victim to the cause which in the love and fear of 
God he had espoused, and who has left behind him 
as a memorial, not this fleeting tribute of friendship, 
but an institution which is to live for ages, and 
which entitles him to be ranked among the bene- 
factors of this city and the world. When he be- 
gan his work, he had no anticipation of such an 
influence and such an honor. He thought that he 
was devoting himself to an obscure life. He did 
not expect that his name would be heard beyond 
the dwellings of the poor. He was contented with 
believing, that here and there an individual or a 
family would receive strength, light and consolation 
from his ministry. But gradually the idea that he 
was beginning a movement, that might survive him, 
and might more and more repress the worst social 
evils, opened on his mind. He saw more and more 
clearly, that the Ministry at Large, with other agen- 
cies, was to change the aspect of a large portion of 
society. It became his deliberate conviction, and 
one which he often repeated, that great cities need 
not be haunts of vice and poverty ; that in this 
city, there were now intelligence, virtue and piety 



60 DISCOURSE. 

enough, could they be brought into united action, 
to give a new intellectual and moral life to the 
more neglected classes of society. In this faith he 
acted, toiled, suffered and died. His gratitude to 
God for sending him into this field of labor never 
failed him. For weeks before he left the country, 
never to return, I was almost the only visitor whom 
he had strength to see ; and it was a joy to look 
on his pale, emaciated face, lighted up with thank- 
fulness for the work which had been given him to 
do, and with the hope that it would endure and grow 
when he should sleep in the dust. From such a 
life and such a death, let us learn to love our poor 
and suffering brethren ; and, as we have ability, let 
us send to them faithful and living men, whose sym- 
pathy, councils, prayers, will assuage sorrow, awa- 
ken the conscience, touch the heart, guide the 
young, comfort the old, and shed over the dark 
paths of this life the brightness of the life to come. 



APPENDIX 



APPENDIX. 



In the preceding Discourse, I have not spoken 
very distinctly of one part of Dr. Tuckerman's 
character, the strength of his attachment to indi- 
viduals. He was not absorbed in one great object. 
The private and public affections lived together in 
him harmoniously and with equal fervor. His 
experience of life had not the common effect of 
chilling his early enthusiasm or his susceptibility 
of ardent attachment. He was true to old friends 
and prepared for new ones. His strong interest 
and delight in Dr. Follen and Dr. Spurzheim 
showed, how naturally his heart opened itself to 
noble-minded strangers. From the latter, his mind 
received a leaning towards phrenology. When he 
went to England, his sympathies created a home 
for him wherever he stayed. Where other men 
would have made acquaintance, he formed friend- 
ships. One of these was so precious to him, and 



64 APPENDIX. 

contributed so much to the happiness of both 
parties, that it deserves notice in a memoir of him. 
I refer to his friendship with Lady Byron. Of his 
college class-mates there were others as well as my- 
self who enjoyed much of his affection to the last. 
One of these was Jonathan Phillips, Esq., whom he 
accompanied to Europe, and who had a true rev- 
erence for his goodness. The other was Judge 
Story, so eminent as a Jurist at home and abroad. 
While the preceding Discourse was passing through 
the press, I wrote to the latter, requesting him to 
communicate to me his reminiscences of our friend ; 
and with characteristic kindness and warmth of 
heart, he sent me the following letter, written, as 
he says, in haste, but which will give much pleasure 
to all who have an interest in the deceased. I 
publish it the more gladly, because his views of our 
friend's life at college are more favorable than those 
which I have given. 



TO THE REV. W. E. CHANNING, D. D. 

Cambridge, April 10, 1841. 
My Dear Sir : 

I comply very cheerfully with 
your request, although there are very few remin- 
iscences of our late lamented class-mate and friend, 



APPENDIX. 65 

the Rev. Dr. Tuckerman, which 1 could supply, 
which are not already familiar to your mind. 
During our collegiate life, my acquaintance with 
him was but slight, until my junior year, when he 
became my chum ; and so pleasant and confiden- 
tial was our intercourse during that year, that we 
should undoubtedly have continued chums during 
the remainder of our college studies, if some family 
arrangements had not made it convenient for him 
to adopt a different course. The change, how- 
ever, did not prove the slightest interruption of our 
intercourse and friendship ; and I feel great gratifi- 
cation in saying, that, from that period until the 
close of his life, I am not conscious that there was 
on either side any abatement of mutual affection 
and respect ; and whenever and wherever we met, 
it was with the warm welcome of early and unsus- 
pected friendship. 

Many of the characteristics so fully developed 
in his later life, were clearly manifested when our 
acquaintance first commenced. During his college 
life he did not seem to have any high relish for 
most of the course of studies then pursued. He 
had an utter indifference, if not dislike, to mathe- 
matics, and logic, and metaphysics ; and but a 
slight inclination for natural philosophy. He read 
the prescribed classical writers with moderate dilU 
5 



66 APPENDIX. 

gence, not so much as a matter of taste or ambi- 
tion, as of duty, and as a task belonging to the 
recitation room, the Latin being uniformly preferred 
to the Greek. And yet I should not say, that he 
was idle or indolent, or without a strong desire of 
improvement. His principal pleasure lay in a de- 
votion to the more open and facile branches of 
literature, and especially of English literature. 
History, moral philosophy, poetry, the drama, and 
the class of studies generally known by the name 
of belles-lettres, principally attracted his attention ; 
and in these his reading was at once select and 
various. The writings of Addison, Johnson, and 
Goldsmith were quite familiar to him. The his- 
torical works of Robertson, and Gillies, and Fergu- 
son, and other authors distinguished in that day, as 
well as the best biographical works, were within 
the range of his studies. In poetry he was more 
attached to those who addressed the feelings and 
imagination, than to those who addressed the un- 
derstanding, and moralized their song in the severe 
language of the condensed expression of truth, or the 
pungent pointedness of satire, or the sharp sallies of 
wit. Gray's Bard, and Collins's Ode to the Passion? 
were his favorites ; and above all, Shakspeare, in 
whose writings he was thoroughly well read ; and of- 
ten declaimed many of the most stirring passages with 



APPENDIX. 67 

the spirit and interest of the dramatic action of the 
stage. Young's Night Thoughts seemed to be 
almost the only work, which from its deep and 
touching appeals, and elevated devotion, and dark- 
ened descriptions of life, and sudden bursts of 
eloquence and enthusiasm, made him feel at that 
time the potency of genius employed in unfolding 
religious truths. He possessed, also, a singular 
readiness and facility in composition, perhaps what 
would by some persons be deemed a dangerous 
facility. What he wrote, he threw off at once iu 
the appropriate language, rarely correcting his first 
sketch, and not ambitious of condensing or refining 
the materials by successive efforts. 

I have thus far spoken of his taste and intellec- 
tual pursuits and attachments in our college life. 
But what I most delight to dwell on are his warm- 
hearted benevolence, his buoyant and cheerful 
temper, his active, sympathetic charity, his gentle 
and frank manners, and above all, that sunniness 
of soul, which cast a bright light over all hours, 
and made our fireside one of the most pleasant of 
all social scenes. So uniform, indeed, was his 
kindness and desire to oblige, that I do not remem- 
ber a single instance, in which he ever betrayed 
either a hastiness of temper or a flash of resent- 
ment. He was accustomed to distribute a portion 



68 APPENDIX, 

of his weekly allowance among the poor, and the 
friendless, and the suffering. His love of morals 
and virtue was as ardent, as it was elevated. His 
conduct was blameless and pure. I do not be- 
lieve, that he ever wrote a word, which, dying he 
could have wished to blot on account of impurity 
of thought or allusion ; and his conversation was 
at all times, that which might have been heard by 
the most delicate and modest ears. Occasionally 
his buoyancy of spirits might lead him to indulge 
in giddy dreaminess, or romantic fervors, such as 
belong to the untried hopes and inexperience of 
youth. But it might with truth be said, that, even 
if he had any failings in this respect, they leaned 
to virtue's side. 

I confess, however, that the opening of his lite- 
rary career did not then impress me with the no- 
tion, that he would afterwards attain in his profes- 
sion and character the eminence, to which every 
one will now deem him justly entitled. He seem- 
ed to want that steadiness of purpose, which looks 
difficulties in the face, and overcomes obstacles, 
because a high object lies behind them. His mind 
touched and examined many subjects, but was 
desultory and varying in its efforts. I was in this 
view mistaken ; and I overlooked the probable 
effects upon a mind, like his, of deep religious 



APPENDIX. 69 

sensibility, and, if I may so say, of an enthusiasm 
for goodness, when combined with a spirit of 
glowing benevolence. 

When we quitted college our opportunities of 
familiar intercourse, from the wide diversity of our 
pursuits, as well as from our local distance, were 
necessarily diminished.! saw him only at distant 
intervals, while he was engaged in his preparatory 
studies for the ministry ; and when, on entering his 
study one day, I found him reading Griesbach's 
edition of the New Testament with intense atten- 
tion, and in his comments on it in our conversation, 
discoursing with a force and discrimination, which 
showed the earnestness with which he was en- 
deavoring to master his profession, a new light 
struck upon me, and I began to perceive that he 
was redeeming his time, and disciplining his thoughts 
to the highest purposes. During his residence, af- 
ter his settlement at Chelsea, 1 saw him frequent- 
ly, either at Salem, where I then resided, or at 
Chelsea, where I took occasion on my visits to 
Boston, to pass some time at his house. His im- 
provement was constantly visible ; his studies more 
expanded ; his knowledge more exact, as well as 
various ; and his piety, that beautiful ornament so 
deeply set in his character, shining forth with its 
deep, and mild, and benignant light, with a peculiar 



70 APPENDIX. 

attractiveness. I remember, that for a long time 
Tucker's Light of Nature was one of his favorite 
studies ; and he made it the theme both of his 
praise and his criticism at many of our meetings. 
It was while he was at Chelsea, the minister of a 
comparatively small and isolated parish, that he 
nourished and matured the great scheme of his life 
and ambition, the Ministry at Large for the Poor. 
I need not dwell upon its beneficial effects, or its 
extraordinary success. I deem it one of the most 
glorious triumphs of Christian charity over the cold 
and reluctant doubts of popular opinion. The 
task was full of difficulties, to elevate the poor 
into a self-consciousness of their duty and destiny, 
and to bring the rich into sympathy with them ; 
to relieve want and suffering without encouraging 
indolence or sloth ; to give religious instruction, 
where it was most needed, freely and without stint, 
and thus to widen the sphere, as well as the motives 
to virtue, among the desolate and the desponding. 
It was in fact doing what Burke has so beautifully 
expressed. It was to remember the forgotten. 

But 1 am wandering from my purpose, and 
speaking to one who fully understands, and has 
eagerly supported this excellent institution — and 
yet, I think, you will agree with me in saying, that 
its establishment and practical success was mainly 



APPENDIX. 71 

owing to the uncompromising zeal, and untiring 
benevolence of Dr. Tuckerman. It was the 
crown ins labor of his life, and entitles him to a 
prominent rank among the benefactors of man- 
kind. 

1 do not know any one, who exemplified in his 
life and conduct a more fervent or unaffected piety, 
than Dr. Tuckerman did. It was cheerful, con- 
fiding, fixed, and uniform. It was less an intellec- 
tual exercise than a homage of the heart. It sprung 
from a profound feeling of the mercy and goodness 
of God. It was reverential ; but at the same time 
filial. His death was in perfect keeping with his 
life ; it was a good man's end with a good man's 
Christian resignation, hope, and confidence. 

It was in the summer which preceded his death, 
that, on his recovery from a severe illness, he rode 
out to Cambridge. He came to my house, and in 
his warm, yet anxious manner, said to me, " I 
could not pass your house, my friend, without de- 
siring to see you once more before I died. I have 
been very ill, and as I thought, very near to death. 
But I was tranquil and resigned, and ready to de- 
part, if it was God's good pleasure. And I felt 
no fears." He stayed with me some time, as long 
as I would allow him in his then feeble state of 
health. He talked over our long friendship, our 



72 APPENDIX. 

youthful doings, our advancing years. And when 
we parted, he bade me a most affectionate fare- 
well. It was our final farewell — I saw his face 
no more. 

I send you, my dear sir, these hasty sketches, 
such as they are, with a flying pen. I cannot 
suppose, that there is anything in them which 
would not have occurred more forcibly to others, 
who knew Dr. Tuckerman. But I was unwilling 
to withhold my tribute to the great excellencies of 
his character, his zeal in all good works, and his 
diffusive benevolence. 

" His saltern accumulem donis, et fungar inani Munere." 

Believe me, truly and affectionately, 
Your Class-mate and Friend, 

Joseph Story. 



APPENDIX. 73 



A friend has kindly translated the following from the Intro- 
duction to Baron de Gerando's late work on Public Charity : 

In a work, recently published in Boston, by the 
respectable Dr. Tuckerman, we have a very re- 
markable exemplification of this assiduous, enlight- 
ened charity, quickened by religious sentiment. 
Dr. Tuckerman holds the offices of Minister at 
Large and distributer of charity to the indigent 
people of the city of Boston, and renders to a so- 
ciety of which he is the delegate, a yearly account 
of his ministrations and observations. A work that 
he has just published contains the substance of a 
series of periodical reports, which throw invaluable 
light upon the condition and wants of the indigent, 
and the influence which an enlightened charity can 
exert. As we read, we follow the steps of the 
minister of the gospel, carrying assistance and con- 
solation into the bosom of families, overwhelmed 
with misfortune ; and raising the debased, reforming 
the depraved. In such a school we learn the se- 
crets of the art of benevolence. The author finds 
occasion, in treating this subject, to rise to the 
highest views of the theory and rules of this art. 



74 APPENDIX. 

He makes his readers feel all the power of Christ- 
ianity for the moral improvement of the lower 
classes ; he compares the legislation in his own 
country in respect to the poor, w r ith that of England 
and Scotland ; discusses the rights of the indigent ; 
and compares the relative situations of the rich and 
the poor in order to the discovery of their mutual 
duties. He particularly discriminates between pov- 
erty and pauperism, and points out the grievous 
effects of the error which confounds them. 



APPENDIX. 75 



The following Biographical Sketch of Dr. Tuckerman is taken 
from an article upon his life and character, by Rev. E. S. 
Gannett, in the Monthly Miscellany of Religion and Letters, 
July, 1840. 

Joseph Tuckerman was bora in Boston, Jan- 
uary 18, 1778. Of the early instructions of his 
mother, a truly pious woman, he always spoke with 
peculiar gratitude. His youth was passed in pre- 
paration for college partly at Phillips Academy in 
Andover, and partly in the family of Rev. Mr. 
Thacher, of Dedham. In 1794 he entered Har- 
vard College, where he was graduated in 1798, as 
one of the class to which Judge Story and Rev. 
Dr. Channing also belonged. His preparatory 
studies for the ministry were pursued under the 
direction of Rev. Mr. Thacher. of Dedham. Soon 
after he began to preach, he received an invitation 
to become the successor of Rev. Dr. Payson at 
Chelsea, where he was ordained November 4, 
1801. In June, 1803, he was married to a 
daughter of the late Samuel Parkman, Esq., of 
this city, who died in the summer of 1807. In 
November, 1808, he was again married, to Miss 



76 APPENDIX. 

Sarah Cary, of Chelsea, who after thirty-one years 
of the most happy connexion, was taken to a higher 
life, leaving a remembrance dear to the hearts of a 
large circle of friends. In 1816 Mr. Tuckerman 
visited England in the hope of deriving benefit to 
his health, but was absent only a short time ; after 
his return he suffered much from dyspepsy, and 
never recovered the full tone of health. He con- 
tinued in the active discharge of the duties of his 
ministry till the spring of 1826, when he felt the 
necessity of relinquishing in some measure the la- 
bors of the pulpit, and his mind, which had become 
much interested in the condition of the neglected 
poor of our cities, sought an opportunity of con- 
ducting a ministry peculiarly suited to their wants. 
On the 4th of November, 1826, just twenty-five 
years from the day of his ordination, he preached 
his farewell sermon at Chelsea, and immediately 
commenced his service in Boston, to which place 
he soon removed with his family. He was at first 
assisted in this work by a private Association of 
gentlemen, who had for some time held stated 
meetings for their own religious improvement and 
for conference upon the means of benevolent action ; 
but he was very soon appointed a Minister at Large 
in this city by the Executive Committee of the 
American Unitarian Association, who became re- 



APPENDIX. 77 

sponsible for the small salary which he received, 
and which for several years was raised by the con- 
tributions of ladies in our different congregations. 
In 1828 the Friend Street Chapel was erected for 
his use, as a place of worship for those whom he 
had brought to a sense of the value of religious in- 
stitutions, but who were unable to pay for the privi- 
leges of the sanctuary. His untiring zeal in this 
ministry, the success of his labors among the poor, 
and the extent of his influence over the rich, 
evinced particularly in the confidence which they 
reposed in him as the almoner of their charities, 
were subjects of too familiar remark to need any 
illustration. The ardor with which he prosecuted 
his labors was too much for his bodily strength, and 
in 1833 he again visited Europe in company with 
his friend, Mr. Phillips, and passed a year abroad, 
principally in England, where he formed many valu- 
able friendships, and was instrumental in awakening 
much interest in his favorite subject — the moral 
elevation of the neglected and vicious poor. On 
his return he found the Ministry at Large placed 
on a more stable foundation than he had left it, the 
Benevolent Fraternity of Churches having been 
organized with a special view to its support. A 
more commodious chapel was erected, and younger 
laborers were associated with him. His own ability 



78 APPENDIX. 

to render active service was, however, irretrievably 
impaired. The winter of 1836-7 he was obliged 
to spend in the milder climate of St. Croix, from 
which he returned, as it was thought, much bene- 
fited. But the vital force was too nearly exhausted. 
Repeatedly prostrated by disease, he rose only to 
show the steadfastness of those principles and pur- 
poses which filled his soul, and sunk again, as if to 
prove the constancy of the faith which seemed to 
gain new power from suffering and bereavement. 
From a severe illness in the autumn of 1839 he 
so far revived, that after much hesitation a voyage 
to Cuba was recommended as the only means of 
prolonging his life. He sailed for Havana, and 
soon sought the interior of the island ; but a short 
trial proved the hopelessness of the attempt to re- 
cruit an exhausted frame, and he returned with the 
daughter who was his devoted companion to Ha- 
vana, where after some days of extreme debility, 
attended with great suffering, he died, April 20, 
1840, in his sixty-third year. 

Dr. Tuckerman received the honorary degree of 
Doctor in Divinity from Harvard University in 
1826. It was a tribute to his ministerial fidelity. 
His published writings are few, excepting those 
which arose from his connexion with the Ministry 
at Lanie. One of the last services he rendered to 



APPENDIX. 79 

this institution was the preparation of a volume, 
which we fear has not obtained a wide circulation, 
upon " The Principles and Results of the Ministry 
at Large." 

At a meeting of the Central Board of the Be- 
nevolent Fraternity of Churches, May 10, 1840, 
the following resolution was unanimously passed : 

" Resolved, That the death of Rev. Joseph 
Tuckerman, D. D., demands on the part of this 
Board an expression of their deep sense of the 
value of his services to this community, and that 
recognizing in him the first incumbent, if not the 
founder,* of the present institution of the Ministry 
at Large, they cannot but acknowledge the useful - 

* In strictness of speech it might be doubted if Dr. Tucker- 
man should be styled the founder of the Ministry at Large, as 
gratuitous instruction to the poor had been given both by lay- 
men and clergymen before his removal to Boston. In 1822 
the Association to which we have adverted had established 
evening religious lectures for those who attended no place of 
w T orship during the day ; and Rev. Dr. Jenks was employed 
by another Society in visiting and preaching to the poor. 
When Dr. Tuckerman came to Boston, his own mind had not 
clearly denned its plans of operation, and the idea which was 
subsequently expanded into the institution of the Ministry at 
Large had not, perhaps, proceeded beyond a general purpose 
of devoting himself to the spiritual benefit of those who had 
no religious teacher or friend. The Committee of the Amer- 
ican Unitarian Association must also share in the honor of es- 
tablishing this ministry. But as it was his perseverance and 
success that gave both form and efficiency to the institution, 
it is but a small deviation from accuracy to call him its founder. 



80 APPENDIX. 

ness of a life, the last years of which were devoted 
to this institution, in whose service his strength was 
exhausted ; and while they submit to the Divine 
will, that has deprived them of the counsels and 
labors of this Christian philanthropist, they would 
cherish his spirit and hold up his example before 
themselves and others, as a motive and a guide to 
future exertions in behalf of the neglected and the 
sinful." 

A resolution similar in character was passed at 
the annual meeting of the American Unitarian 
Association, May 26, 1840, viz : 

" Resolved, That the death of Rev. Dr. Tucker- 
man, senior Minister at Large in this city, an insti- 
tution once under the care of this Association, de- 
mands the expression of our sincere respect for his 
memory, our deep gratitude for his services ; and 
while we regret that his life of eminent usefulness 
and distinguished christian philanthropy is closed, 
we would bow with submission to the divine will, 
and gather from his example lessons to quicken 
and guide our own efforts in the cause of human 
happiness and virtue." 

Dr. Tuckerman's remains were brought to this 
country, and the funeral service w r as attended in 
King's Chapel, where he had been accustomed to 
worship during the last years of his life, in the af- 
ternoon of May 26. They were afterwards de- 
posited at Mount Auburn. 




























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